For families traveling with multiple small children, interaction between children in the rear seat can, at times, be undesirable and may lead to momentary familial disharmony. As is well known to those experienced in driving children about, even a slight conflict between otherwise well-mannered children can sometimes escalate into behavior requiring adult intervention and disturbing the emotional well-being of others in the vehicle. In extreme cases, passenger safety can even be endangered.
Clearly, the ideal solution to this problem is for parents and caregivers to foster behavior and sibling relationships that minimize interpersonal conflict and promote peaceful problem resolution. However, in practice, it has been found that other measures are needed, at least in the short term. In addition, there can be situations in which it is beneficial to separate a child from a pet or from other items in the motor vehicle.
One proposed alternative for preventing or alleviating this type of problem is providing a physical and/or visual barrier between the children which minimizes the opportunity for conflict. Barriers or dividers of various types have been installed for isolating passengers in the rear seat of a motor vehicle. As can be expected, barriers suitable for children traveling in a family vehicle may require some measure of physical and visual isolation, but are subject to quite different requirements than are normally considered as useful for transporting prisoners, for example, or for traveling with domesticated animals.
Among considerations for providing a divider solution that is suitable for children, in conformance with passenger safety and restraint requirements, and practical for family use are the following:                (i) Suitable dimensions and weight. A rear-seat divider should be of sufficient dimension to obstruct, or at least discourage, physical and visual contact between the children seated on each side of it. At the same time, such a divider should not obstruct visibility for the driver. Adult passengers in the front seat may still need access to the children during travel, which also sets some dimensional constraints. Other factors relative to size include practical considerations such as accessibility for the children, so that the divider can remain in place and allow the children to enter or to depart from the vehicle from either driver-side or passenger-side doors, crossing past the divider without undue complication.        (ii) Adaptability to different types of motor vehicles. Different sizes, makes, and models of cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, and other motor vehicles have different arrangements of rear seat structures, including orientation angles, depth and height dimensions, curvatures, humps and other features. A suitable divider solution should be readily adaptable for any of a number of types of vehicles. In addition, a rear seat divider should be usable with any number of possible arrangements of child and infant car seats and carriers.        (iii) Construction. Construction materials for the divider should be suitably chosen considering factors such as how the material(s) would respond under collision impact, how well the material(s) hold the divider shape, material flammability, material durability, cleanability of surfaces, and other factors. Other practical considerations can include flotation ability of the materials. The material(s) used would preferably be compliant, compressible, and resilient, so that it does not compromise child safety or obstruct desired access or passage. There should be sufficient stiffness for holding its shape, without being overly rigid.        (iv) Simplicity of design and ease of use. Clearly, there would be advantages to a single-piece design, for reducing manufacturing cost and for making the rear seat divider easier to use and to store. There would also be advantages in making the rear seat divider easily removable so that it could be transferred from one vehicle to the next, for example, without the need to remove and remount auxiliary bracing or fastening hardware.        (v) Conformance to conventional restraint mechanisms and regulations. Safety regulations for child travel include requirements for both shoulder belt and lap belt restraint, child seat sizing/type/orientation, and other regulatory requirements. A suitable rear seat divider must be readily conformable to these requirements, so that it does not prevent the children from being appropriately strapped in.        (vi) Secure and stable mounting and installation. This consideration relates to each of the requirements given in (i)-(v) above and must take into account some normal movement and shifting and some amount of flexure and abuse.        
In addition to these considerations, other useful considerations can include making the divider device more compact, such as for shipping and storage, minimizing or eliminating number of parts, particularly small parts with the potential of causing a choking hazard, use of recyclable materials, durability of surfaces to staining, soiling, and ultraviolet light exposure, and so on.
While a number of rear seat divider or barrier devices have been proposed, however, there is certainly room for improvement. Existing designs tend to fail to adequately meet some or all of the general requirements (i)-(vi) just listed. For example: U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,487 entitled “Automobile Seat Divider for Children” to Passehl describes a rectangular divider that separates the rear seat into two sections; however, the device shown falls short of what is needed for adaptability (ii, above) since it is designed for a particular configuration of automobile seats. The Passehl '487 device also fails to satisfy accessibility criteria given in (i) above, since it must be moved out of place in order to allow child access across the middle of the car in loading or unloading. Its rigid foam core, sandwiched between layers of softer foam material, gives the device some rigidity but may crack over time if stressed in a sideways direction, weakening the constraint mechanism provided by the single seat belt.
Another example of a rear seat divider that fails to meet requirements (i) through (v) above is given in U.S. Pat. No. 6,142,574 entitled “Car Seat Divider Construction” to Alexander. The s-shaped design of the device disclosed is even more limited than Passehl '487 shows, and would not likely be suitable for all types of motor vehicles, failing to meet the adaptability criteria noted in (ii) above. The height dimension shown in the Alexander '487 patent could easily obstruct driver visibility through the rear view minor, thus failing to meet criteria for dimensioning given in (i) above. Auxiliary mounting hardware appears to be necessary, failing to satisfy criteria for simplicity given in (iv) above.
Thus, it can be seen that, although there have been a number of attempts to provide a suitable solution for providing a rear seat divider that meets the needs of parents and children, there remains a need for a device that is suitably sized and constructed, that is adaptable to a wide range of vehicle types, that is simple to install and use, and that conforms with conventional child restraint mechanisms.